Thanatos
by slire
Summary: [Suffering, a study:] People think he's dumb. But he knows he's smart because he's finally figured it out.


**Disclaimer:** A Song of Ice and Fire © George R. R. Martin

**A/N:** "yeah I'll just drabble something quick about Theon while listening to Nicole Blackman this is a GREAT idea"

(On a second note, I think this is the last remains of my interest in suffering as a theme. I should probably note that I do not romanticize it. I parody the idea that artists have a tendency to glorify pain. Suffering is suffering. You don't always come out a better person afterwards.)

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**Thanatos**

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This is what is important: suffering is sacred.

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He briefly remembers a time before knowing—a phantasmagoria of shifting identities, a constant lack of control, and fracturing foundations.

Theon the prince. Theon the hostage. Theon the turncloak.

He twists and contorts to fit the views of others. His memories, too, which chills him to the bone. (Those looks Robb sent him for an example, were they hateful or fond? He can't even remember how Robb looked like anymore.) There is a storm underneath his skin.

People think he's dumb.

But he knows he's smart because he's finally figured it out.

.

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His skin has been cracking for a very long time. Pieces of himself, falling. A silent shattering. A slow, haemorrhaging wound. An avalanche.

It starts at the top. Sharp cracking as the ice tears away from the mountain's face; a low rumbling as it begins to slide. A rumbling such if one thinks the earth itself was gonna be sick. The mass begins to move, tearing out trees and rocks, everything in its path. Accelerating as it goes. Headed for the river. All things end up in a river, eventually.

("That is how nature cleans herself, see?" Maester Luwin had said.)

It is then Theon realizes what he must do:

Cleanse himself.

Strip himself off all the things that aren't him. To get to the essential. To get to where he really is, underneath all the grime and petty desire. Only then can he reach inside the core of his pain and remove it, so it won't ooze out anymore and stain his life. He'll be clean.

(There is something very holy about his.)

But he's not there, not yet.

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He fought it at first, yes, of course he did, screamed and begged...

(_"Oh stop stop stop please!"_)

...but soon he realized that this was just another trail in the process. The cellar is dark (like the things that surround soul) and his body is stiff from hanging on an x (rejection? unknown?) but that's alright, because he's closer now.

Ramsay teaches him through the arts of torture, especially when it comes to taking away and giving. He is a master at it. Theon is his student of a sort. Who better than to help his process than a monster?

He takes his time, stripping away piece by piece. He takes a finger or two. Hacks them off with a meat cleaver, sometimes relying on the surprise momentum, but most times he drags it out. "You cannot hurry a process," he murmurs once. And then, "Remember who you are," which is hard in the ecstatic agony. He loses himself in it.

Ramsay flays him, slowly. Perhaps he'll find something interesting underneath.

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Oh, there is grime, oh yes.

Dirty water—blood, they call it, but he knows the truth—pools out of him, and he feels so much lighter. Ramsay doesn't allow him to bathe and he doesn't understand this at first. Not until Ramsay puts up several mirrors in his cell. They talk back to him all the time. Reminds him who he is. How close he is.

He is covered in excrement. There is no nice way to put it. He is covered in his own shit.

But it is to show what resides inside, and alas, all part of the process.

He doesn't like wearing anything. Fabric has a tendency to get stuck in his open sores—but he doesn't need them either; stupid things like pants or socks. Mostly he floats through the room naked.

Ramsay also sees it fit to cut his cock off.

That, too, is part of it all.

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"There are people who believe there is a level of pain the body cannot handle, rendering the subject unable to feel anything," the maester lectures the acolyte. "If you meet someone who thinks like that, tell them to write to me. I'll tell them about _him_."

The body lies on the table. Pus oozes from his many wounds and he is delirious—but he is very much conscious, yes, as they smear remedies on his infected flesh. It produces such a sweet burning, and he is sad that the maester insists he'll be drugged while they work.

But Ramsay, oh Ramsay would have known.

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He doesn't remember anymore.

They don't bother him anymore. No dreams, nothing. No familiar faces staring down at him in disgust or sadness. And that's okay. He doesn't need them anymore. He talks to himself. He lives of himself. He eats himself.

He felt the slow drips of pain before, swirling inside. But now he's almost clean inside.

He scratches words on the walls of his cell so people will visit this museum and ask themselves how someone like him ends up like this.

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It doesn't take long before he realizes starvation is part of it, too.

Take these points for an example. All the flesh that is eaten. The teeth tearing into it. The tongue tasting its savour. The hunger for that taste. It adds up to an open mouth stuffed full of filthy meat, drooling and dribbling down the chin, lips curling into a savoury smile. Remove all that, and what do you have?

Cleanliness.

He eats sleep and air, living off the dirty parts, the parts that he doesn't need anymore. He can finally control himself now. His life. Even death.

He will finally reach bone and self.

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Ramsay fucks him and he feels it is only fair.

He is not gentle (thank the gods) and takes him on the floor, one hand on the wall to support himself and the other holding Theon's lower half up. He makes guttural noises and digs his teeth so deep into grimy back that he can taste the filth. His Reek remains mostly motionless; he's too deep inside himself now, and no matter how hard Ramsay thrusts, he cannot always reach him. There's an occasional twitch.

This too, is a part of the process.

Every day he comes closer to vanishing.

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Everything that comes off of him is sacred.

Every hair. Every eyelash. Every fingernail. Every piss. Every body part.

His body is a sept—and you can't see him when he goes inside. He feels the gods move through him. All of them. "It's aright," they say, "you're almost there."

.

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When they find him he has a little smile on his face.

No loneliness. No pain. Nothing. He's eaten through.

He passes through all of you.

Silently.

Like wind.


End file.
